Is this new way to choose where to buy a house?

Forget transport links and school catchment areas

When my husband and I were house hunting (and by house I obviously mean flat) we had two criteria in mind: 1. Where has nice coffee shops? 2. Where has nice coffee shops that we can afford?

A new report linking coffee shops with house price growth shows that our naive approach to house hunting might not have been so silly after all.

The new study, aptly named the ‘barista barometer’, has named South East London as the place to invest (incidentally that’s where we ended up buying) and it’s all down to the independent coffee shops that are opening in the area.

The cafe culture study, by Hamptons International, reveals the areas in London where coffee shop numbers have soared over the last three years. Areas range from Kings Cross to Teddington but a third of all the entries are in South East London.

Speaking to Homes & Property, buying agent Rachel Thompson said: “People actively don’t want a boring chain store high street. When they can see good-quality cafés and shops moving in, it gives a vote of confidence to a whole area. It also says something about the demographic of an area and most people want to live close to like-minded people.”

While I hate to be so easily stereotyped, the barista barometer is right. We knew very little about Camberwell or South East London for that matter, only that our mortgage could stretch to a little flat there. After viewing a flat in our price range and wanting to put an offer in we were both immediately more comfortable once we’d visited the hipster coffee shop down the road, heard of the cool butcher 15 minutes away in Peckham and spotted the sourdough bakery on the high street. We are such a cliche.

The study shows that, similarly to the presence of a Waitrose raising house prices in an area, we judge the future of an area on it’s high street and the types of shops present. For the typical London buyer a independent coffee shop, where they can order their soya flat white, is more than a nice-to-have; it’s a sign that the area is on the up, that they’re making a solid investment.

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